Mahomet Seymour High School

MS boys won 2nd sectional in a row! We qualified in 10 events. Wow! The Mahomet-Seymour Boys Track & Field won its second consecutive sectional championship last night! We were assigned to a new, much tougher sectional, that included another defending sectional champion, Morton. It didn't look great going in - our top senior sprinter, Dylan Smith, was fighting a knee injury and it was a cold, rainy, and windy night. Jayvon Tompkins, a freshman thrower, started things off with a bang. On his very first shot put throw he hit 15.9 meters (52' 2") to qualify for state! That throw would hold out as an event winner. Ty Clark won the pole vault on a shortened approach, (again, due to conditions). Both of our triple jumpers, Bryson Teifenhaler and Austo Li, jumped PRs to make finals and place. However, coming out of field events we were in 4th place. The first event on the track was the 4 x 800 (Blake Dillman, Henry McMurry, Ethan Ramirez, Lukas Nykaza) - they were 3rd, but ran well under the qualifying time for state. Next was the 4 x 100 relay (Travis Hoffman, Steffen Kellner, Wade Manuel, Dylan Smith). This relay has been a strength for us all season, but our number one runner was interfered with and it was clear Dylan was fighting his knee. They finished in 5th with our slowest time of the year. The exchange judges did not see the interference and we were stuck with the result. The following race was the 3200 meters. Tate Bode had eclipsed the state standard once this season and Adam Smigielski's personal record was just off the mark. Still, in these miserable conditions - would they be able to run anything close to their personal records? They worked together, ran a smart race and were 5th and 6th. More importantly, they ran 9:56.25 (Tate) and 9:56.57 (Adam) to beat the state qualifying mark of 9:57.0! Still, 1st and 2nd went to Eureka and Morton - we were falling further behind. At this point I was just happy we were getting kids out to Charleston. 110 hurdles were next and the always reliable Travis Hoffman secured 2nd, as expected, for a trip to state. 100 meters proved sophomore Steffen Kellner was ready - racing to an impressive 11.27 for a new PR and good for 6th place. Dylan Smith raced gamely but his knee was just not cooperating. We fell further behind Morton and Metamora. In the 800 meters Auggie Gaudio and Ethan Ramirez were ranked 3rd and 5th respectively, which is exactly where they finished. Both ran under state qualifying. Metamora and Morton went 1st and 2nd. At this point I want to give a general shout out to Coach Walmer and his distance crew - they qualified every possible distance competitor in the meet! 4 x 800 relay, 2 in the 3200, 2 in the 1600, and 2 in the 800. Our 4 x 200 was ranked 3rd, but got 5th. The top four teams were within just a few points of each other, but we were 4th. The 400 would be an important turning point. Blake Dillman ran a season best of 50.40 to qualify in second and Cody Moen ran a lifetime best of 51.79 for 5th place. Cody was bitterly disappointed, but I asked him after the race if he could run the 4 x 400 relay and he said he could if needed. Morton had not placed and Metamora got 7th. For the first time that night Mahomet-Seymour took a slight lead. Travis Hoffman would extend the lead by easily winning the 300 hurdles. By the way, it was an extremely fast field - all 8 runners in the last heat ran under state qualifying. So now we had a lead of 11. The problem was we had three remaining events and Morton was ranked number one in all of those events. The first of those was the mile - Morton was ranked 1st and 2nd. If the race finished that way Morton would close the gap. The Morton runner did win, but Auggie Gaudio was 2nd and Henry McMurry was 4th both qualified for state and both beat Morton's second runner. Instead of losing ground, we had gained a point. The 200 went as seeded and Morton got 1st and we got 5th. Our lead was a precarious 5 points. We were going into the final event - the 4 x 400 relay. Morton was the prohibitive favorite; they had run 6 seconds faster than everyone else and had clearly loaded the event. We needed to get 3rd to win the meet. The problem was Travis Hoffman who has our fastest split in the 400 was ill. Cody Moen would need to step in and the other three guys Auggie Gaudio, Henry McMurry, and Blake Dillman were running their 3rd event. Cody and Henry ran tough legs, but we were in 4th at the half way point when the baton went to Auggie. Auggie picked off a couple of runners on the backstretch. When batons were handed off to the anchors Morton was winning, we were 2nd but had three powerful anchormen from other schools just behind us! Blake held them all off with a brilliant 50.6 seconds final leg for 2nd. Mahomet-Seymour had just won its second consecutive boys track & field sectional! FINAL SCORE Mahomet-Seymour 112 Morton 109 Metamora 87 Eureka 70 Limestone 63 Prairie Central 59 Normal U-High 56 Lincoln 37 +8 more STATE QUALIFIERS Shot Put - Jayvon Tompkins (1st) Pole Vault - Ty Clark (1st) 4 x 800 - (Blake Dillman, Henry McMurry, Ethan Ramirez, Lukas Nykaza) (qt) 3200 - Tate Bode (qt) and Adam Smigielski (qt) 110 Hurdles - Travis Hoffman (2nd) 800 meters - Auggie Gaudio (qt) and Ethan Ramirez (qt) 400 meters - Blake Dillman (2nd) 300 Hurdles - Travis Hoffman (1st) 1600 - Auggie Gaudio (2nd) and Henry McMurry (qt) 4 x 400 - (Blake Dillman, Cody Moen, Henry McMurry, Augustus Gaudio) (2nd) *qt = qualifying time